


The Tears of Avalon

by thirdholmes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Albion, Art as a Coping Mechanism, Arthur Pendragon Returns, Artist Merlin, Avalon - Freeform, Depression, Developing Relationship, English Folklore - Freeform, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Lady of the Lake - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Magic is back, Mental Health Issues, Merlin - Freeform, Merthur - Freeform, Morrigan - Freeform, Nightmares, PTSD, Present Day AU, Spirits, Therapy, celtic mythology - Freeform, fey, hecate - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdholmes/pseuds/thirdholmes
Summary: After centuries of coping after Arthur’s death and the loss of everyone he’s ever loved, Merlin’s mind, his soul, has paid the price. When Arthur returns, magic follows, dredging up the sins of the past and the horrors that always lingered beneath the surface.





	1. Colors

It seemed impossible for him to find something that so significantly gave him solace in the excruciating passage of time.

Merlin remembered the first sunrise after Arthur’s death, the light clawing at his eyelids and throwing them open, dragging him out of his self induced darkness and forcing him to bear witness to the cursed day. He remembered it without fail, as clearly as if it had been written again and again in his mind each waking moment, the ink never getting the chance to dry, wound never having time to heal.

His eyes had very nearly not been able to open, swollen greatly from the torrent of tears that had escaped them, drying him up like a long suffering well.

One day had passed, yet as the lightest whispers of rain began to tap at his skin, giving him no other choice than to rise from the grassy shore of the lake and seek shelter, it felt like a million.

Merlin walked.

He walked, feeling the cord cut inside of him, nearly glancing behind him, sure the severed tie was trailing behind him, swiping at his ankles, thread dragging through the dirt.

It felt too dreamlike. A nightmare that had been given too much reign.

He followed the faint ebb of the sun behind the wool clouds as it traced its familiar path through the sky, neck sore from gazing up through the thick treetops. He did not stop for rest- it eluded him- nor for water- he had none. After innumerable steps translated into hours, and the trees thinned to reveal a well worn path, Merlin realized had been alone in these woods before. He did not recall when or why, only that he had made a trek through this very terrain on his way back to Camelot. That was nothing compared to this, though. The loneliness had scraped out everything within him, leaving him a hollow husk, an automaton, walking numbly and with no clear purpose.

It hurt. He’d never known pain like this before. Not when he was stung by a Serket, struck by a mace, poisoned, shot with an arrow, or when the magic had been drained from him. That loss was painful to him. This…. this was utter agony. It was hell. This was what hell was like.

The sun was beginning to set, but instead of painting the sky a rich crimson like the trail of a knight’s cloak, it remained a somber gray, as if the very earth was in mourning.

As it should be, Merlin thought tiredly.

His throat was screaming for water, but the numbness of his body had allowed him to ignore it for the most part, letting him keep on moving without any regard as to the blisters on his feet, the aching in his shins, the stabbing in his sides, the throbbing of his head. Unfortunately, it refused to sedate the feeling of his heart cannibalizing itself, ripping itself to shreds inside of his chest.

It was on the brink of dusk when he found himself entering the citadel of Camelot. He was struck only by the mildest of confusion, realizing slowly that he had no memory of even entering the lower town, much less reaching the castle.

Memories swept over him like a wave, a riptide pulling him in different directions. Every stone held a memory of Arthur, every single pillar, cobblestone, brick. Camelot was Arthur. And here he was as he had been so many times before, in its heart. It was empty and still, no pulse left. Dead.

A swath of deep red entered his blurring vision and Merlin began to sway on his feet, knees buckling as he stumbled towards it almost blindly, expecting a friend, a knight- Gwaine perhaps, yes, it should be Gwaine. Loyal, kind, charismatic Gwaine- there was the dark hair-

But it was not Gwaine. Later, Percival would tell him with red and mournful eyes that he was dead. Gallant, gregarious, hedonistic Gwaine. Murdered by Morgana before Merlin had killed her.

Another life he could have saved.

Guinevere was rushing down the staircase to the castle, hiking her gown up to keep it from hindering her strides. She was calling for him- screaming, perhaps- but it was a dull ringing in Merlin’s ears, like a utensil tapping at the side of a tin cup rather than the sonorous song of a bell. A blink and she was in front of him, grabbing him by the arms, shaking him, her lips saying one word over and over frantically. A question. A name.

_Arthur?_

Merlin was able to focus on her eyes, trying to remember how joyous they always were, richer than the most fertile of soils. They were barren then, devoid of most life.

She already knew the answer.

She just needed to hear it from _him_.

“Gone.” Merlin said in a hoarse voice, the single word scratching free from his throat. That one word felt like a condemnation. It had enough weight to squeeze the air from his chest, rendering him unable to breathe from the sheer force of it. _Gone. Arthur was gone._

_Gone. Gone until the beings that had deemed his life ready to be taken decided it would be of use once again._

_The great Arthur Pendragon was dead._

Merlin collapsed.

Over one and a half millennia passed since the conception of that moment. Over and over without fail wars came and went, and Merlin found himself in the midst of them, desperately searching for his knight. Then he began looking for a soldier. Almost the whole world turned into war twice. Bombs rained down on Arthur’s once great lands, razing the earth. Still, he did not return.

Magic spoke to him in his sleep, warning him that he could not reveal his powers. The world wasn’t ready for it.

The world had been ready in Arthur’s time! How could it not be ready now?

Despite his protests, he heeded its wishes.

He cycled through over a dozen three quarter lifetimes, reverting back to his young adulthood once his ageing body would no longer hold his burden. He changed his name each time, kept up his guise, allowing himself to age normally, only interfering when he chose to. If he wanted to remain thirty years of age for a decade, who was to stop him?

No one.

There was no one left.

Merlin sat on the edge of his bed, the large room cloaked in the darkness caused by the incessant rainstorm outside. The droplets on the windows cast odd shadows on the wall, on Merlin’s bare skin, painting over his scarred back.

Perhaps they would cover the bullet wound from the Battle of Waterloo. The metal ball had been dug crudely from his skin, leaving a small star shaped scar near his left hip, the skin barely raised. Shrapnel scars from a landmine Merlin’s comrade accidentally activated in World War One speckled his right arm and parts of his chest. He’d been called Christopher then. Christopher Hunithson. He stopped changing the surname once the new century came.

World War Two had been the hardest. Seeing the suffering and not being able to intervene with his full might. He’d taken a bullet to the shoulder because in the craze of the battle he swore he saw Mordred, freezing in his shock. Merlin later got shot in the leg because he thought he was rescuing Daegal from enemy fire. The nurse looked like Mithian. The kind, elderly doctor sounded like Gaius. He vaguely recalled having some sort of mental breakdown and being sent back home, punching the commanding officer that acted too much like Uther. They called it ‘shell shock’.

Merlin called it ‘losing his mind’.

After living as so many different people, Merlin had ended up accumulating an absurd amount of wealth. He donated everything he got from war bonds to charity, keeping the rest to maintain his own abnormally extended life. Merlin ended up buying a sizeable house less than a kilometer away from the lake, close to being a manor in his opinion. It was a unique clash of Victorian and modern from many attempts at renovation. The kitchen walls were brick but the appliances were the newest available, the sitting room had been repainted not two months ago to be a blueish gray, the master bedroom was white. The study near the back of the house had glass walls, facing the enclosed yard lush with floral growth. There was even a small greenhouse for Merlin to grow herbs, the ones Gaius used in making medicine or to just let dry and hang on the wall, creating a familiar scent. The house became a home, something he’d been missing for far too long. When the twenty first century hit, Merlin knew that he could no longer keep drifting. Arthur needed him close.

There was a moment when he entertained the idea of therapy. He’d been through the trauma of around fifteen lives, and it was no doubt taking its toll on his mind, as well as his body. But it would be impossible to reveal any of this to anyone without being institutionalized. He hadn’t been in battle since the last world war, so the PTSD would take artful explanation.

_“Would you say the war traumatized you?”_

_“I was always dealing with trauma. I think war just made things worse.”_

_“Now, which war was this?”_

_“World War Two.”_

He still had his service records in a box in one of the many spare rooms. Merlin called it his archive room, filled with bins containing information from each life he faked. Bank records, false documents, anything he needed. If he ever wanted to be on national news or make a load of money at a freak show he could present all of his documents and say _“Hi, my name’s Merlin and I’ve been alive since the fifth century, and if that’s hard to believe here’s my service record from the first world war, my fingerprint, photograph, and all. How do I look so young? Magic.”_

Therapy sounded a lot better. So he went. It was around the first decade of the new millennia, and he’d chosen to present as his twenty two year old self. His therapist was a kind woman in her late thirties named Augusta Lachlan. Merlin had gone through five in his search for the perfect one, and settled on her. Augusta didn’t remind him of a ghost. She was new, her own person. It made it easier to take off his burden with a stranger. It was difficult for him to make new friends, yet he was sure he found one in her.

Merlin told her about his delusions, seeing old faces in new people. Trigger phrases, objects, places that would bring back memories so forcefully that he would shut down. He told her of his best friend, Arthur, who was wounded in Afghanistan, and how Merlin was unable to save him. He was unable to return home for proper treatment and Merlin- _Ben_ \- stayed with him as long as he could. The camp was invaded and many hostages were taken, including Arthur. It was easier to lie and say he was MIA. Arthur wasn’t truly dead, not if it was possible for him to return. And Merlin didn’t want to vocalize the fear of him being dead. He was gone. Not dead, just gone.

He recalled their time together, describing their relationship to Augusta, twisting the stories a bit to avoid the whole truth. Meeting when Merlin goaded himself into a fight, mishaps during hunting trips, trips around the country when they were younger, going places in search of artifacts. Almost everything.

“It sounds like he was much closer than just your friend.”

“No, he was married, we never-”

“I don’t mean to insinuate anything, but it seems to me that you two were married in your own way. A ‘two sides of the same coin’ kind of arrangement.”

Augusta began to sound too much like Kilgharrah. Merlin didn’t run that time, though. He would never be able to completely run from the past. Trigger words could not be dodged, faces could not stop bearing similar traits. A barista who’s hair was as dark as Morgana’s, an elderly woman he helped with groceries that responded with “thank you, my boy.”

The only escape would be if he locked himself inside his home, but even then he had set it up so that he could never forget. His mind wouldn’t let him. There were more scars under the surface, although however numerous the visible and unnamed ones were.

His thumb brushed over the engraving of Ygraine’s sigil given to him by Arthur. The medallion had survived with him, one of the many relics he had kept with him after Camelot had faded and the unknown duration of his life made itself known to him. The design in the center had been tarnished and nearly disfigured, no doubt due to Arthur having done the same thing Merlin was doing now. Even so, he could still make out the small form of a dragon.

The rain continued down in torrents and Merlin heaved a sigh, reaching to place the sigil back in the nest of velvet he’d made for it in his bedside drawer, a small shrine. He’d tried keeping it in the study with most of the other items he had saved, but that night he could not rest, panic seizing him. The fear of losing it was too great for Merlin to bear. So it remained with him in his own room.

A sweater lay across Merlin’s boxer clad thighs and he stared at the fabric with a distracted sort of gaze. It was a favorite of his, maroon, soft cotton, light and warm.

Color was what Merlin found solace in. The rich blues, reds, and violets he wore so long ago translated to slightly more muted tones in his wardrobe. The comforter, his whole bedspread, was a pale cream color, reminding him not only of his small room in the castle, but the walls of the castle itself. Maroon became a favorite. The blend of Merlin’s blue with the red of Arthur and Camelot.

He didn’t remember the year he took up painting. Acrylic was messy, but the colors blended beautifully to create an air of accuracy that only a camera could compete with. Merlin had portraits of Arthur, Gwen, and Gaius propped beside his desk in the study. He slept in the room on a futon for a week as he was bombarded with dreams of the faces of everyone he had known, rolling over in the dark to reach for the fan of papers on the ground, charcoal sketches soon filling the space and being taped to the glass. Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, Morgana, Mordred, Freya, Mithian, Agravaine, Morgause, his mother and father, Will, everyone. Even Uther. Hidden behind the others, of course.

Merlin spent hours created watercolor pieces of the scenery of the kingdoms. The castles, caves, forests, Lake Avalon. A spare bedroom was painted to look like the Valley of the Fallen Kings. Augusta had helped him with it in a session about developing healthy coping mechanisms. He’d refused to believe he needed them. He wasn’t ill, he wasn’t depressed or deluded.

At least that was what he told himself. A sane person can seem ill just as an ill person can seem sane. The line was becoming too blurred for him as of late.

It was only when his therapist showed up one morning with her silver blonde hair tied back, wearing a paint stained sweatshirt, ripped jeans, and carting a child’s red wagon laden with paint cans that he got his wake up call.

The two of them spent the whole day working on the mural, going off a hasty sketch Merlin had done with pastels. In the hours they spent painting he connected more with a person than he had in the last fifteen-hundred years or so. He learned about Augusta’s wife, Taharah, who liked to call her ‘Summer’. Their son, Rory, who was as adorable as he was a troublemaker. She became a friend, and he felt much less than just a client.

When she had finally gone home he looked at his paint covered hands and ran them down his neck, leaving a trail of rich greens down the sickeningly pale expanse, his face, forearms. Smothering himself with the vibrance and life of color. The vitality of green restored something in him as good as a potent spell and as he looked around the room his face split into the widest smile he’d experienced in centuries.

Merlin stepped into the shower not much later and watched the paint swirl in the water around his feet before disappearing down the drain. It was oddly calming, and for the first time in a very long while he actually felt vaguely at peace.

Augusta helped tear down the wall of denial and he accepted that things were not going fine for him. Merlin stretched himself thin over the years in his wait for Arthur, his searching, the unsurety. He did not know if Arthur would rise from the same waters, or if he would manifest on a battlefield in his full glory and strength, conquering the fight. It was time to stop the anticipation and to settle down and wait. Live a life for himself. It wasn’t easy to stop his daily walks past the lake, heart racing at the briefest ripple in the water’s surface.

_“I’m not here to tell you that you’re ill,” she said in their first meeting, clasping his hand as if she’d known him for months. “I’m here to help you. If that means diagnosing you, giving you a name for what you’re feeling, I will. But my first priority will always be helping you heal.”_

He pulled the sweater on and trudged downstairs. Despite the darkness, it was only early afternoon, which meant that he had to make some effort to sustain himself until falling asleep.

The house was devoid of any other life, save for a few plants. They helped to remind Merlin that he still had magic, which he used to keep them alive once he noticed their respective states of decay and dying. Watering them was not his forte.

In spite of the emptiness, it was very full, filled to the brim, stretching at the seams, with memories. The Pendragon banner, his and Gaius’s books shelved in the sitting room, Gwen and Arthur’s crowns hidden under a drawer’s false bottom. Even without the relics he would never be able to quell the tide inside of his head, bursting with centuries of words and faces and places. The endless cycle of gain and loss.

It was beginning to be too much.

 


	2. Mab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not have PTSD/S, nor have I received training of treatment for this condition. I do have major depression and anxiety so I write with knowledge about those disorders but everything about PTSD/S and treatment comes from credible sources and classroom information from my college level psychology course

Merlin padded silently downstairs, blessed to not have any flat mates or a bitter tenant to chastise him if he tread too loudly. Silence was a force of habit for him, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. He made his way to the kitchen and opened up a cupboard, selected a mug with the Orion constellation painted on it and setting it aside on the counter as he rummaged through the incessantly growing stack of tea boxes and tins populating the counter space. Merlin knew that it was too much for one man to have, but it was nice to be able to have choices after so many of them were taken from him in life.

He chuckled a bit at the pathetic excuse he’d given, despite it not being to anyone. He just liked tea. That was the extent of it. Although, admittedly, it was nice to have the cluttered collection of containers. It was homely, reminding him of Gaius’s workspace, jars and vials everywhere.

As he turned to fill the electric kettle, his heart skipped a beat and Merlin scrambled backward into the opposite counter, clutching his hand to his chest as if he’d been electrocuted. To be fair, he _had_ been shocked in a sense.

 _This isn’t real_ , he told himself. _She’s not there. Don’t pay any mind._

Yet he couldn’t take his eyes away from the vision before him.

Crouched beside the kettle was a woman no taller than the length between Merlin’s wrist to the tip of his middle finger. Her pale hair was secured atop her head, tied in place with what looked like lichen or some other bit of vegetation. Her small dress was a patchwork of leaves and snippets of dull cloth. Hers was a face he had not bothered to draw, but he knew it well.

He was seeing the faerie woman that had approached him in the woods just outside of their camp when they were searching for Guinevere. She provided him with cryptic aid and unnerving warnings. Whether she was friend or foe was undecided. All Merlin knew was that she should not be sitting in his kitchen.

God, he didn’t even know which would be better; her actually being there or manifesting purely from his mind. Neither option was comforting and he suddenly felt the urge to scream.

“Queen Mab.” Merlin said in a quiet voice, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the countertop behind him as his knees shook. They were slick with sudden sweat yet he was able to find a proper hold. “You’re not real. You- you must be dead.”

She tilted her head curiously, regarding him with the same bemused smirk she had before, her cheek dimpling a bit below the dark spot blemishing her features.

“Alive or not, it’s all the same. If my body should rot, raw is my name.” Mab grinned, eyes glittering as if there was a shared secret between them. “There was a time, dear Emrys, when you preferred I speak in rhyme. Or is that not the case after such a passage of time?”

_Don’t acknowledge her. Just turn away. Leave the room. Do something._

Merlin threw a spoon at her.

The faerie avoided it with ease and it clattered against the wall behind her. Instead of being irked, she cackled mirthfully, rocking back on her heels.

“My, oh, my how weak you’ve got. Is it true you cannot trust your thoughts?”

“You’re not real.” He said, firmly this time. Merlin locked his knees together in order to stand straighter, yet he could not entirely hide the tremor.

Mab scoffed, taking hold of the spoon and angling it so that she could study her reflection in the metallic surface. She patted the curls of her hair and gave a satisfied huff, looking back to him. “If it pleases you, think it so. Once I impart my message, I shall go.”

Merlin’s throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. It was impossible to ignore her, hallucination or not. Curiosity sank its claws into his chest, pulling him bodily from counter and across the kitchen space to stand before the fey woman. “Message? From whom?”

Mab merely raised an eyebrow knowingly, swiping her tongue across her lips before speaking. “For ages we have heard your cries, tears while waiting for your gallant to rise. We sense that now the time has come, and your painful days are nearly done. Heed my words with due concern, for the reason is not something one should yearn. Give it time and you shall learn  
the cause of Sir King’s mighty return.”

It couldn’t possibly be true. Was she honestly telling him that Arthur would be returning soon?

The hollow cavity within his chest resonated dully as hope sounded a joyous yawn, awakening from its slumber. He tried to smother it as quickly as he could, knowing that the heat of it would only burn him. Mab was not real. She was just in his head, telling him what he wanted to hear. He must be having an episode of sorts, something was wrong, where was his phone, he needed to call Augusta, he needed-

“Emrys.” Mab said, effectively drawing his attention back to her. “The strings of fate do not unwind. But you cannot help him if you’ve lost your mind.”

She vanished, leaving behind the vague scent of petrichor. Merlin lurched forward, hand slamming down onto the space where she once was, finding nothing but empty space. The spoon was still there and he brushed it into the sink, moving the kettle aside, searching inside of the bread box, inside the mug, but Queen Mab was not to be seen. Gone. As if she never was.

As if she never was.

As if she never was.

What if she hadn’t been.

What did that mean for him?

He screamed once, a single yell tearing itself from his tightening chest, and the mug shattered, acrylic painted porcelain scattering across the counter and falling to the floor like hail. The outburst had triggered his magic, something he’d kept so well controlled now loose as a cannon.

His greatest fear was losing control. It seemed he already had.

Merlin’s hands trembled and tears began to fall from the corners of his eyes without any warning. A choked gasp punched itself from his throat and transformed into a full on sob as the shock settled in. Struggling to breathe, half blinded by tears, he stumbled into the living room and found his cell phone sitting on the coffee table. It was so hard to breathe. It felt like Morgana was casting that spell on him again, the invisible hand latching around his throat and strangling him. He could hardly see the number pad and silently thanked whatever gods existed that the thumbprint key worked. Augusta was the most recent person he had called and he quickly tapped on the screen, the dialing beginning.

By the time it connected and he heard the therapist calling his false name, Merlin had fallen onto the nearest armchair, curled up between the arms, something he was too tall to do comfortably.

 _“-Ben? Ben, answer me, has something happened?”_ Augusta’s concerned voice sounded in his ear. He barely heard the sound of a child chortling in the background, another woman saying something in the distance.

“Y-yes.” Merlin gasped, swiping at his eyes, unable to stop the tears as they came unbidden. “Aug- Au- I think I’ve finally lost it, I- oh god-”

He began to hyperventilate, his breathing as out of control as an unbroken mare. He’d dealt with one once in the stables at Camelot and nearly had his skull struck in by the hooves. His head began to feel light and the phone loosened in his grip, so Merlin called his lips shut and tried to hold his breath in, letting it out in a few seconds and choking on nothing.

 _“Ben, listen, I think you’re experiencing a severe anxiety attack.”_ Augusta said, sounding like she was making herself seem composed. Merlin heard the rattle of keys and a door being closed. _“I’m on my way over now, but for the moment, darling, I need you to steady your breathing. Are you near a clock?”_

Merlin nodded before realizing she had no way of seeing it.

_“Ben?”_

“Sitting room clock,” he managed to get out.

_“Good. I want you to wait until the hand counting seconds gets to a number, and take in a deep breath. Let it out when it gets to the next number, breathe in when it gets to the one after that, and so on. Can you do that for me?”_

Merlin looked up to the clock and blinked away his tears enough to see the hand she was talking about.

“I can try.”

_“Please do. I’ll keep my phone on speaker while I drive, don’t be alarmed if some wanker tries to honk at me because I’m going a bit above the limit.”_

Merlin stifled a laugh and focused on the clock.

_Tick. Tick._

It reached the four and he took in the largest breathe he could.

_Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick._

Five. He let it out slowly, pacing himself with the glide of the clock hand.

Six. Another breathe in.

Seven. Out.

 _“You’re doing wonderful, Ben,”_ Augusta praised, and he could almost hear her relieved smile. _“I’m only a few streets away. Is your door unlocked?”_

“Key where it always is.” Merlin said with surprising steadiness. He’d tried to give one to her before but she refused, stating that as much as she was for bending the rules of doctor-patient relations, having a key to his house in her constant possession would not look good for her in anyone’s eyes. So they agreed on a spot near the front steps, a hollow in the trunk of the small willow tree in the miniature garden there.

The benefit of the village was that people tended not to live very far away. Augusta and her family resides on the same main road that ran alongside the lake. Not three minutes by car. A nice walk if you fancied it and the temperature permitted.

_“Okay. I’m quite close now, I can see your house. Is it okay if I hang up now?”_

“Yeah, go on.” Merlin imagined being in her vehicle, driving along the stone wall that separated the backyards from the road, passing the back of his house and turning the two corners to be on the street that was parallel to his front door.

A few moments passed and he heard the soft tread of her car’s tires on the driveway. The door soon opened and closed, steps in the hall getting closer.

Augusta had really dropped everything to get to him. Raindrops trailing down her face from her damp hair showed that she hadn’t even taken a jacket or umbrella with her. Her hair was tied up messily, indicating that she had been doing housework. She wore a comfortable looking sweater and plaid pyjama bottoms, feet hastily stuffed into a pair of plain flats. Usually she was the epitome of professionalism in button downs and slacks, her hair curled neatly over her shoulder. She seemed for human like this though. Imperfections that were not styled or designed.

“I gave Taharah a quick text to tell her where I was going.” Augusta said, taking a seat in the chair next to him, reaching out for his hand. Merlin reached back and grabbed it gratefully, the contact anchoring him promptly in reality. Her skin was still cool from the air conditioning in her car. The weather must have been quite warm, perhaps even humid from the late spring rain. “I preach against texting whilst driving so I suppose I’m a hypocrite.”

Merlin chuckled weakly, sitting up in a more comfortable position. She rose and pulled him gently to his feet, leading him over to the sofa where they could sit closer to each other, shoulders touching, the contact representing her solidarity with him.

Augusta’s free hand smoothed back his hair from his brow, not in a romantic gesture, but a motherly one, perfected by years of raising a child. “Tell me what happened, Ben.”

He didn’t hesitate to explain to her what he had seen, barely managing to veil the complete truth. In this explanation he said that while trying to make tea a woman had suddenly appeared to him in the kitchen delivering enigmatic phrases that he didn’t understand. The last bit was a lie. He understood them, he just didn’t want to believe them.

“She told me that Arthur was coming back soon.” Merlin said softly, his voice cracking all the same. “And that I couldn’t help him if-” if I’ve lost my mind. “-if I was unwell.”

“You’re positive that she wasn’t real?” Not doubt, a genuine question.

Merlin shook his head. “I don’t know how she could have gotten in.”

A beat of silence between the two. Nothing but the still clicking clock and the falling rain outside

“Ben, have you ever considered schizophrenia as a possibility?” Augusta asked lightly, touching his arm with the tips of her fingers. There were no nails piercing into this skin. She had a habit of peeling them, Merlin knew.

He nodded slowly, sinking down into the sofa and drawing his knees up to his chest. “It can’t be that.”

She nodded. “I had to ask. This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned hallucinations and I just wanted to make sure.”

“I just- it can’t be. Arthur needs me here, I’m the only one left for him, I need to be able to-” Merlin began to fret, his hands flailing about like birds with crippled wings as the result of a young child’s cruel experimentation.

Augusta gave him a sympathetic look, but it was empathy she spoke with.

“What you need to do is take care of yourself. You’ve spent ages worrying over Arthur without any thought as to yourself. He probably didn’t help much with that, but it’s gone on long enough. You can’t neglect yourself. You’re not living, you’re just existing. Eating to sustain yourself, drinking proper fluids, but you’re depressed. You’ve locked yourself in this house, and when you do go outside it’s only to the lake or the grocery store. This is no life for a man your age.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said knowingly and soberly.

“I’ll bet I don’t.” his therapist admitted. “But I know this: you’re not crazy. I despise that word. You’re not deluded because what you speak of has an actual chance of happening. Your friend could return soon. But you need to accept that nothing you can do will speed up that process. When I said take time for yourself, I didn’t mean to mourn and sulk.” Augusta wagged her finger in mock chastisement. “You do better than most. You haven’t fallen prey to any vices, you don’t self medicate or drink heavily-”

“Oh, have I not shown you the copious amount of booze I’ve hidden away in the half closet?” Merlin joked, trying to smile. “It’s like a miniature speakeasy in there.”

Augusta raised an eyebrow, but she smiled nonetheless. “I’ll believe it when I see it, you renegade. Listen, you’ve been traumatized, I won’t sugarcoat it. We’ve been over that. Now, just because you didn’t have hallucinations before doesn’t mean you won’t start having them. Auditory and visual together is rare, but not unexpected. It is a psychotic feature, but that’s just psychological terminology. Don’t fall victim to the stigma. We’ve talked about cognitive processing therapy, haven’t we?”

Merlin nodded. “And prolonged exposure. But I don’t want to do that, the triggers-”

She paused him with a look. “You don’t need to explain yourself. You came to me because of depression and that’s what I’ve been treating you for because that’s all you’ve permitted, but its time we address the trauma. I need you to be the one to take initiative on this because I can’t force you into anything you’re uncomfortable with but I honestly don’t think it’s healthy for you to let it go untreated. I completed my training for CPT and EMDR, we can try and incorporate those in our session tomorrow if that’s alright with you.”

Merlin took a moment to think about it, and then gazed across the living room and down the short hall to the study where his art resided. In his mind's eye he could see the portfolio full of sketches of Arthur set against the desk for him to rifle through when he pleased. All of them were of the king in his prime or snippets from his dreams and imagination. None of his final days with him. He was trying to preserve him like lightning in a bottle. Holding on to the most painful moment in his life and waiting for something to fix it. Picking at the scab day after day and never letting it heal for fear of the scar.

He had to stop bleeding.

“Let’s do it.” Merlin breathed, and in his heart he knew it was a good decision. The right one.

Augusta smiled warmly, and he knew why Taharah called her Summer. Not just because of her name, but the way she could warm people without effort. Arthur had that effect on people when he was especially charming. Merlin could now see the resemblance between them. The strong jaw, golden hair, battling blue eyes. He never associated her with him before because of her femininity but now he saw it more than ever.

Was his closeness and comfort with her the result of transference? Unconsciously projecting his image of Arthur onto her? Merlin couldn’t be sure, only infinitely more grateful that she was in his life. She wasn’t a replacement, but a placeholder.

“Lovely. Do you need me to fix you something to eat? If I recall correctly when I helped you shop the other day we got some fresh spinach. It’ll be real easy to cook up if you need me to.”

And that was the end of the comparison. Merlin would have laughed out loud there and then if he had a shred less of composure. Arthur would never offer to cook for him.

“That would be great, thank you.” Merlin said, returning her smile. “Careful in there, though. I- er- I think I smashed a mug when I got upset.”

“Not a problem for me since you’ll be the one cleaning it up.” Augusta stood and clapped her hands together, motioning energetically for him to follow her. “Come on, up you get!”

A bit of her energy seemed to leech into him and made it easier for him to comply. He cleaned the broken mug up while she washed the greens. They chatted about nothing while she cooked and he sat on the countertop, running his bare feet along the seams of the wood floor. The two of them sat and ate together, poking fun at a ridiculous show that they turned the television on to.

For the first time in an era, he felt properly normal. 

-

[the next chapter will hopefully come within the next couple of days if not by next week. I’ll do my utmost to update as regularly as I can. Thank you all so much for your comments on the first chapter, the response was unpredictable and just wonderful. - Milo]


	3. Into the Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a nightmare and a cryptic message from an old friend, the storm still rages and Merlin and Augusta prepare to delve into his trauma, causing memories to resurface, both good and unwelcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent hours doing extensive research on EMDR therapy and even watched an hour long session that went through the phases in order to portray it with as much accuracy as possible. This and the next chapter will contain parts of the first session but not entirely as I do have a plot that ties in to it.  
> addendum: the light stream technique mentioned is an actual coping technique that’s mainly used for anxiety and it’s worked for me on a number of occasions.

_He was lying on stone ground, the cold seeping through his nightclothes. Small pebbles and chips of rocks pressed into his palms, into his cheek, and Merlin groaned, brushing them off as he rose into a sitting position. Dazed. Confused. He stood, swiping the rubble from his clothes._

_And then he looked up._

_Cavernous walls rose above him like the sides of a well, the faintly visible outcrop of rock jutting out several meters above that reached just short of the tunnel on the opposite side. A ledge._

_Had he fallen? How did he even get to this place?_

_The ceiling was littered with what appeared to be stalactites, but as Merlin peered at them, the shapes gradually came into focus._

_They were crystals. Dozens upon dozens of crystals embedded into the ceiling of the cave, glimmering due to light emitting from an unseen source._

_“Beautiful, aren’t they?”_

_Merlin whirled around and discovered that he was no longer alone at the bottom of what he decided to call a pit._

_Morgana Pendragon stood beside him, craning her neck to admire the ceiling. Her obsidian locks were neatly combed, cascading over her shoulders and down the back of her royal blue gown with the elegance of a waterfall in the night._

_His bare feet felt wet and when he glanced down he saw that water was gradually rising around their ankles, nearly reaching his knees in seconds. Morgana’s dark dress swirled around her like an oil spill, shimmering with a spectrum of color._

_“It’s the inevitable, Merlin.” Not Emrys, the name she learned to hate him by. She smiled when she looked at him, and it was without malice. It held a sad sort of resignation. “Our magic is but a drop in the pool. An ocean of powers lies dormant beneath us. And it’s coming.”_

_Merlin’s head spun and he stopped focusing on his soaked clothes. “What does that mean?”_

_Morgana merely sighed wistfully and faced skyward again. “I wish someone cared for me as much as you do him.”_

_Merlin followed her gaze when she looked back up and saw a silver and red form begin to cross the ledge, sword drawn in front of them like a blind man’s stick. His heart caught in his throat and Merlin suppressed a pathetic sound of relief._

_Arthur._

_Suddenly, the pit shook and a torrent of water shot out of both tunnels. The force of it knocked Arthur clean off the ledge. Merlin yelled for him as the knight hit the water several feet away, disappearing beneath the surface. The jets continued, sending water surging into the pool. Morgana screamed as she was thrown back against the wall, a gash opening on the side of her face. A gloved hand rose from the depths and Merlin swore he saw the top of Arthur’s head break the surface not too far away._

_“MERLIN, HELP!” Morgana shrieked, a fresh wave silencing her as she was forced under._

_“MERLIN!” A stronger voice called. A sputter of breath. “MERLIN!”_

_Merlin tore his eyes from Morgana, guilt ripping him apart as he turned to follow Arthur’s voice._

_“ARTHUR!” He screamed, starting to swim towards him, desperate to reach him, see him, touch him. “ARTHUR!”_

_And then something hard struck him in the back and he cried out in pain, sinking under the weight of the stone that had fallen on him. Water filled his mouth, pouring into his lungs and the surface was growing further and further as he swam towards it, ignoring the pain in his spine. He could see the glint of Arthur’s chainmail becoming increasingly distant._

_When Merlin yelled his name, the only thing that emitted from his lips was a gargled sound and a bubble of air._

He woke up gasping for breath, his shirt soaked with sweat, hair plastered to his brow. Merlin shuddered and curled in on himself, hugging his knees to his chest and panting, a sob ripping itself from his throat.

Merlin didn’t fall back to sleep for the rest of the night, his racing heart keeping time with the continuing rain.

The next morning he crawled out of bed at 10:00, knowing that Augusta would be arriving near the end of the hour for their session. Before he went to sleep that night, Merlin looked up cognitive processing therapy as well as EMDR, and found the latter more favorable to him. He did extensive talk therapy with Augusta during their sessions- in fact they’d never gone much further than that and the painting- and CPT seemed closer to more of the same. There was no way to tell for sure unless he tried it, but EMDR caught his attention.

People on forums praised its efficiency, how it seemed to work “like magic”, a sentiment he openly scoffed at. As if they knew what true magic was like.

Yet it seemed to be just short of it. So he texted Augusta who happened to still be awake at that hour and requested that they begin it in their next session.

Her response was as emphatic and supportive as anyone could have hoped for. There was no doubt that she was good at her job. And just a good person.

He managed to drag himself out of bed with the same amount of resistance as usual, brushing his teeth and showering. When he got under the water the nightmare flashed into his mind and he had to grab the bar to keep from slipping, finishing up as quick as he could. Morgana’s helpless screams still resonated in his mind, Arthur’s pained calls. He couldn’t save either of them.

Drying himself with the towel verged on painful as he realized he was trying to scrub away the water from the dream that wasn’t there, and he changed into a calming ensemble that included an Oxford-blue cardigan, gray shirt, and black jeans to take his mind off of it.

As he was about to leave his room, Merlin paused, eyes lingering on his nightstand. A moment passed and he was confused as to why this particular piece of furniture bore any significance until he remembered what was inside it.

Ygraine’s sigil.

It was still sat in its bed of red velvet material as always, more precious than a dragon’s egg. Not a second passed before he fully knew that he wanted it with him today.

Married in your own way. Augusta’s words. They felt truer than before.

Merlin found the leather cord of a necklace, the Celtic charm that once hung from it long gone, and secured the metal seal before hanging it around his neck like a pendant, keeping it beneath his shirt. It was cool against his chest, resting flatly above his heart.

After breakfast he busied himself with arranging the two armchairs in the living room so that they faced each other, mimicking the arrangement in Dr. Lachlan’s office. He found a stray bit of the shattered mug from the day before that had escaped his notice and threw it in the nearest bin, satisfied with the hollow sound it made as it hit the bottom.

The storm had gotten much worse over night. Thunder claps turned into rounds of applause miles above the roof, and rain beat down heavily against the earth, the house feeling like an abused ship at sea. Incessant tapping at the windows was almost enough to make him cover his ears just to seek a moment of silence. There was no rhythm, just pure cacophony.

Augusta arrived perfectly on time, just as Merlin finished setting up a tray of tea. He switched the kettle off and hurried to the front door.

The therapist smiled at him warmly, dressed in her usual prim and professional attire, not a hair out of place. “So it occurred to me that yesterday I forgot to take my shoes off when I came in and my anxiety has been yelling at me to apologize about it so please accept my formal apology lest I go mad from nerves.”

Ever the candid one. Merlin laughed easily. “It’s completely fine. Since you’re helping me change my life one step at a time some of those steps can include shoes in the house. It’s nearly poetic if one tries hard enough.”

Augusta laughed as well. “You’re a romantic! How ever would I have guessed?”

“A single twenty something man living by himself in a small village and talking to his own paintings?” Merlin faked confusion. “And his only friend is his therapist ten years his senior? Yeah, probably not the biggest hint.”

“Oh quiet, you,” Augusta stepped inside and closed the door behind her, shucking off her painful looking heels. “The sooner we get you out there and socializing, the sooner you won’t be single. I won’t charge for being your wingman. Rather, wingwoman.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” Merlin grinned, enjoying the banter. “Kettle’s just boiled.”

“Fantastic,” Augusta adjusted the strap of her messenger bag before setting it down beside her in the armchair. “I’ll have whatever you are.”

“Is Earl Grey good?”

“Is the earth round?”

“A source of debate in some circles.” Merlin decided to answer.

“My point exactly.” She looked pleased with the response. “I, however, am an avid consumer of the aforementioned tea. And a believer of the earth’s spherical shape.”

Tea was distributed and Merlin took his seat opposite her, fingers laced around his cup.

“You’re looking much better,” Augusta commented, blowing on the steaming drink prior to taking a sip.

“Feeling better,” Merlin said, choosing not to divulge the fact that he had another terrible nightmare. “So, EMDR. Shall we begin?”

Augusta set her tea aside, nodding. “Before we start I think I’d like to give a bit of background on the method first. You know what the stages are, I assume? It sounded like you did quite the amount of research.”

“I think I’m familiar with them,” Merlin replied, not wanting to admit he had actually memorized the components of each. Two secrets this morning. “Eight, right?”

“Correct,” she said with a small smile. “EMDR focuses on bilateral stimulation, generally tracking movement with your eyes back and forth. You can also do touch by tapping both sides of your body. Personally, I prefer the ocular method since EMDR is meant to mimic REM sleep. It’s supposed to generate a way for you to consciously and unconsciously process the trauma you’ve experienced and move away from its negative impact.

“Now, with your level of trauma this is likely going to require multiple sessions. Sometimes stages one and two will take up a whole session, even a couple of days, but since I’m familiar with your case and we’ve gone over some relaxation techniques in other sessions that will be important to the second phase we can compact those into about five minutes or so. I will be asking you questions about things I already know or things I need to clarify, and it’ll help you become more aware of what we’re focusing on.” Augusta leaned forward in her seat, expression somber. “We’re going to be strategically delving into your trauma and it’s going to be an emotional experience. I can’t be one hundred percent sure that you’re ready for it, but I think this is what you need. Are you ready?”

“I am.” Merlin said with definite surety.

“Okay.” Augusta leaned back, sitting straight. “First, we’re going to assess. Identify the trauma that it is you want to target. You can pick a specific moment of that incident or an encompassing concept, either is fine. Take your time, Ben.”

He took a deep breath to steady himself before coming up with his answer.

“The loss of my friend, Arthur.” he said at first, already feeling the heaviness of the words. “He was wounded after a battle and I wasn’t quick enough to save him. I managed to get him to safety, but the medic-” Gaius. “He wasn’t sure what to do, the shrapnel,” Tip of the blade. “Was moving closer to his heart. He would’ve needed an operation. I stayed with him as long as I could, but the camp was attacked and I-” an invisible hand circled his throat and Merlin swallowed, determined to get through at least the first part unhindered. “I had to let him go. They took him. I had no choice.”

This was the story he’d presented all this time, surprisingly accurate save for a few fabricated and manipulated details. This wasn’t a modern military conflict, but the Battle of Camlann, the one that survived on the breaths and pages of storytellers for centuries after. The famous fall of the king of Camelot.

Arthur was not taken from a camp by enemy hostiles. Avalon, the spirits, fate, had taken his life and body into their own hands, snatching him cruelly from Merlin’s.

The biggest lie was that he had even served recently. Not that Augusta would have any reason to look into his service records. He’d fought in enough wars. He had the scars. He didn’t need any more.

 _“You don’t look like a soldier,”_ someone told him many decades ago. He was in a pub with some mates from his regiment and their own friends after the Second World War finally came to a close.

 _I’ve fought more battles than you could possibly imagine._ Merlin refrained from answering back. In the moment though, he had merely shrugged it off.

 _“You wouldn’t believe the number of times Hunithson saved my neck,”_ Samuel Thompson jumped in. “He’s as much a soldier as any of us, maybe even more. Isn’t that right?”

The first man didn’t respond because someone put a new disc on the record player and his girlfriend dragged him onto the dance floor.

“You’re doing great so far,” Augusta praised. “Can you tell me what behaviors are caused by this? Symptoms, things like that?”

Merlin looked out of the window on the far side of the room, able to see the faint peak of the tower on the island in the middle of the lake. A brief flicker of anger burnet in his chest and he quickly smothered it, taking a calming breath. “I used to seek out dangerous situations, go back into combat in hopes of running into him or something. Like he would…appear, come back to where he was needed. When I saw that was futile, I came home here and began taking walks by the lake on a daily basis, even sitting on the banks occasionally, just waiting for him. Hoping that he would come home as I did. Some time after I lost him, his wife, Gwen, passed. My adopted father, surviving members of our regiment died in combat or passed away. I’m afraid of forgetting them so I painted them, drew them. I started getting nightmares, began sleepwalking, had flashbacks, mild hallucinations. It got hard for me to leave the house because certain things began to trigger memories and catch me off guard. In this house I preserve those memories, but it’s a nasty shock when they’re out of my controlled space.”

“Coping mechanisms?”

“Art, breathing patterns, and… that light stream exercise.”

“Good,” she nodded, content. “Now for preparation.”

She explained how she would be passing two fingers across his field of view for his eyes to follow, and they established the angle of the path- horizontal- and the distance, as well as the width of the path, and the proper speed, making sure he could track it well. The speed would increase as they began to enter into the memory.

They would also need something to come to should Merlin want to ground himself, or even terminate the session. A stop signal was created- crossing the middle and index fingers of both hands- and a coping method- the light stream technique .

“We’ve done this before with anxiety,” Augusta said. “And it’s essentially the same principle with EMDR except we’re going to use it as a sort of safe haven for when it gets too rough. An umbrella for the rain. Close your eyes and imagine that little ball of light or color near your brow.”

He closed his eyes and it was there in an instant, a small, bluish orb of shifting light floating above his eyes in a field of darkness.

 _Hello_ , Merlin found himself greeting it.

“Let it flow around or through your body,” Augusta’s voice began to become softer, almost distant, like the soothing lull of waves against the rocks as he did what she said, the orb dragging into a spool of light, unraveling and wrapping around him, dipping into his veins, circling his limbs, dancing to the melody based off the steady beat of his heart. “Let me know what you notice. An emotional state, a feeling, anything.”

“My heartbeat,” Merlin said softly. His shoulders began to slacken, relaxed by the calming sight he had produced. “It’s… it’s good.”

“Notice that. Go with it.”

So he did. A stream of light passed across his eyelids and a slight smile pulled at his lips. It reminded him of when he first saw the Sidhe at Avalon, blue fey-like creatures, skimming across the surface of the water. Suddenly, he could see the lake in his darkness, ripples spreading with each pulse.

“Calm.” he noticed. The memory began to feel even realer, the cool wind of the summer night kissing his pale skin. “Pleasant. Like a breeze that isn’t too hot or cold. Hopeful. I’m young and I still have a lengthy future ahead.” Just like he was that night. The wide eyed servant sorcerer with so many wonders of the world to see, yet unblemished by toils and torment. “Definitely calm.”

“Maintain calm,” Augusta suggested. “Keep that association so we can come back to it.”

For another minute, Merlin interacted with the light in his mind, following it around his body, watching it arch around trees and plants, before opening his eyes, ascending back into the present.

“Do you think that state is something you can return to if you need it?”

Merlin gave a single nod.

“Would you like to name your light?” Dr. Lachlan inquired. “A trigger phrase or a label to call it back to you when you need it?”

He didn’t need much more than a moment to come up with his answer. “Albion.” 


	4. Follow The Light

“We’re moving on to phase three,” Augusta informed him. “You could say it becomes a trifle bit more difficult here. I’m going to ask you to conjure an image that represents the worst part of the trauma. Take all the time you require.”

Merlin didn’t have to think about it. He could feel it, the memory imprinted on him, and he rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. The lake unfolded before him, the sound of the wind in the trees and reeds, whispers as the world watched. Armour digging uncomfortably into his chest, the weight of a body solid against it. His arms were sore but he wasn’t going to let him go.

_“Just hold me.”_ Arthur’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Holding him,” Merlin said at last. “Holding him and knowing there was nothing I could do to prevent what was to come.”

“Keep that image,” Augusta told him. He didn’t exactly want to. She pulled her notepad from her jacket pocket and hastily jotted something down. “and tell me a negative cognition you have associated with it. It’s typically an identifying statement such as ‘I am’ or ‘I am not’.”

“What I am in that moment?”

“In _your mind_ what you believe you are in that moment, yes.”

“Then I am guilty.” Merlin realized he was much quieter than before. He pushed his fingers under his thighs to keep them from trembling. “I am powerless. I am not strong enough to save him.”

“And what would you like to believe now?”

“That I am not guilty. I am powerful.” _That Arthur is returning._

Augusta spared him a small smile. “Good. Now, on a scale of one to seven- this is required, I assure you- how true does that statement feel in the moment you are picturing? One is absolutely false, seven is incredibly true.”

“One.”

She started writing again. “What emotions are you experiencing in that moment, paired with the negative cognition that you are guilty and powerless?”

“Fear,” A chill crawled down his arms. “Incomprehensible dread.”

“Can you rate your level of distress on a scale of zero to ten? Zero being calm, ten being the absolute height of distress.”

“Definitely a ten.”

“Bodily sensations that you notice as you hold this image and belief?”

“My, ah,” Merlin swallowed, finding a lump in his throat as if his heart had attempted to flee via his trachea. Blood rushes in his ears and he wasn’t entirely sure if it was what he was feeling in the present or in the memory. “Chest and throat are tight. I’m panicking, my adrenaline is high, heart is beating faster.”

“Notice that as we move into phase four.” Augusta instructed. She paired her middle and index finger together and held them at the agreed distance from Merlin’s face. “Pair those sensations with the image and negative belief. After each set I’ll be asking you what you notice, and you can be as literal, abstract, or symbolic as you like. Whatever makes the most sense to you. You might react physically or vocally and that’s just an expected abreaction. I will pause if that happens and ask your permission to continue. There’s no judgement and no rules, just follow my fingers with your eyes. You are in control, Ben. You have the light. Are you ready to begin?”

_I am._ Then he realized he hadn’t said it out loud. “I am.”

Augusta began to move her fingers back and forth across his vision at a steady speed and he followed them with his eyes, the image still in his mind. The image of holding Arthur as he was dying.

It was as if someone had switched on a television set in his mind and piled up speakers around him, making it as immersive as possible.

_The small spot of crimson coating the area of Arthur’s chainmail where Mordred’s blade had gone in was growing larger. He’d soaked through the padding underneath, the vitality slowly leeching from him. There was nothing Merlin could do to stop the tip of the blade from worming its way into his heart. He was utterly powerless against fate._

_He was warned, wasn’t he? Kilgharrah told him about the Druid boy and Merlin ignored his attempts to convince him that the innocent looking child would bring about the demise of Merlin and Arthur’s future world. When Morgana split her skull, Merlin could have left her to die. Instead he healed her because he couldn’t watch his friends grieve over something he had done._

_The grief grew like wildfire over the years. And he was the one it burned._

_Guilty._

_Arthur’s blood was on his hands._

_His hands._

_Merlin didn’t remember pressing them to the wound or touching the armour there but suddenly when he looked down at his lap where his hands were folded now in the present, they were slick with red._

He gasped and his vision cleared, Augusta’s fingers having stopped moving.

“What are you noticing?”

“His blood,” Merlin swallowed, blinking hard. “Arthur’s blood on my hands.”

He wasn’t sure that he imagined the remorseful tone in the doctor’s voice when she said, “Notice that.”

So he noticed.

_The blood made it harder to hold onto Arthur because his palms kept slipping on the metal, the king held up against him mainly by his weight and bulk due to his apparel. Merlin wiped his hands on the grass and Arthur made a pained sound as he was shifted. His king opened his mouth to speak-_

The screen switched off. Everything went black and Merlin was sure that he had just skipped over rewatching Arthur’s death.

_Another time,_ his mind promised. _Face it tomorrow._

_Merlin’s chest and throat constricted as a sob tore from his body. Arthur’s eyes had fluttered shut and Merlin was no longer a support for him. All he was holding was dead weight. Arthur was gone._

“No,” Merlin muttered, lips feeling numb, the single word tumbling out. If he was wading into the water before, the waves were beginning to crest over him, a riptide trying to tear him apart. “No, no, Arthur! ARTHUR!”

“Ben, breathe!” Augusta stopped the set, concern lacing her voice. “You’re hyperventilating, slow your breaths. Breathe. Just breathe.”

“I can’t lose him.” He said simply, and would have hit himself for how childish he sounded. Tears began to flow unbidden from the corners of his eyes, streaking down the sides of his face that had become sallow the past few days.

“I know, dear, but you need to breathe.” Augusta urged. She looked past him to the clock. “Can you follow the clock? Should I count?”

Merlin could barely hear her voice over the sounds of the screams of his past self in his ears and he shook his head, reaching his hand out to her. Augusta understood quickly, this not being the first time this method was needed. It wasn’t the most conventional but Augusta knew it was easier for him to have human contact, something he had isolated himself from immensely. She stood in front of him and placed his hand against her diaphragm, allowing him to track her even breathing.

He could feel the rise and fall of her chest and attempted to mimic it, succeeding more than he thought he would. Merlin gave a shallow nod to indicate he was all right and Augusta sat back down, watching him carefully.

“Do you want me to end this?”

“No,” Merlin said quickly, wiping his eyes dry on his sleeves, jaw set with determination. “Don’t stop unless I make the signal. Start the next set.”

He followed her fingers until it became an automatic thing, almost not entirely consciously moving his eyes to track them.

_I am powerless._

_That was how he felt sending Arthur out on the boat he found tucked away under some broken branches. A family or a fisherman had likely hidden it away for later use, but Merlin required it. He left a handful of gold coins in its place, hoping it would suffice._

_Merlin could barely perform the spell to light it on fire._

_It was almost as if he was a bird, seeing the scene from above, Arthur sailing out into the lake on his makeshift pyre, eyes closed peacefully. Even in death he maintained his handsome features, his strength._

_Merlin found himself back in his body, watching from shore as his truest friend’s remains were consumed by fire._

_And then suddenly his own world was filled with water. He was underwater, eyes open and blind to everything but the depths he was submerged in._

It was as if he was back in the nightmare.

Merlin sputtered, arms flailing as he tried to swim, not realizing that he was still in the seat in the living room.

“What are you noticing?”

“Water,” Merlin could hardly remember to speak, gasping frantically. “I’m- I think I’m drowning.”

“Is it waterboarding? Did someone force you underwater?”

“No, I’m-”

_Blue eyes flashed across his vision and they weren’t his own. Lighter, grayer, stronger._

_Laced with panic._

_Arthur._

_Arthur was drowning._

_Merlin could see him now, frantically kicking in the water, red cloak tangling around his legs like seaweed, the weight of his armour a formidable match, hindering his strength._

“Arthur!” Merlin cried, trying to reach him.

_Arthur turned towards the sound of his voice, mouth parting, a bubble of air floating from his gaped lips._

“Ben, the light! Call your light!”

_Light. That was it._

_Merlin summoned the blue orb of light and sent it to Arthur, the glow wrapping itself around him and pulling his body towards the surface._

_Fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme._

_Follow the light, follow the light just like when you saved my life. When you found the mortaeus flower. Follow the light._

Merlin made a choked sound and he couldn’t convince himself that he wasn’t actually drowning.

“The light!” Augusta’s hands were on his wrists.

“Fromum feohgiftum!” Merlin cried, and he could _feel_ his eyes flashing gold upon the spell’s completion.

A blue swirling orb of illumination was suspended in the air between them.

_Arthur sucked in a gasping breath as he breached the surface of the water._

Merlin exhaled heavily, dizzy with relief.

_His head twisted back and forth and the faint green of the shoreline came into focus._

_And… a street._

_A wall._

_Roofs._

_Merlin’s roof._

Augusta was staring in disbelief, eyes wide with shock. She could see it. The magic. Merlin would have pitied her rational mind except there was one clear word in his own desperate one.

_Arthur._

“Arthur!” Merlin ripped his arms from Augusta’s slackening grip and darted through the kitchen and dining room, throwing open the door to the backyard. Rain pummeled him from all directions, his socked feet immediately soaked. Thunder boomed overhead, the foreboding gray of the sky like the lining of a coffin. Merlin reached the wall and tore his socks off, fingers fumbling for the latch of the door in the wall.

“Ben!” Augusta yelled, appearing in the doorway. She appeared to hesitate for a moment before jumping down the stairs and jogging towards him. “Come back inside, we can talk-!”

But Merlin had already opened the door and ran into the street. A car honked and stopped abruptly, the bumper nudging Merlin’s shins. He slapped his hands against the hood of the vehicle and kept moving, ignoring the pain of small rocks under the sensitive soles of his feet and the driver’s swearing as he ran across the street and into the grass that took him to the lake of Avalon.

His eyes must have been deceiving him but from what they were seeing, there was something bopping in the water no more than a hundred meters from shore.

“ARTHUR!” Merlin bellowed, sure his voice was loud enough to rattle the structure of the tower in the centre of the water. But instead, lighting sliced through the air behind it in defiance, the whip crack of light swallowing his cry. He shrugged his cardigan off and cast it aside, rolling up the cuffs of his pants and leaping into the water, moving as fast as he was able. “ _ARTHUR!”_

He faintly heard Augusta screaming for him from shore, but the sand and silt beneath his feet had dropped off and he was full on swimming, casting his arms out and propelling himself forward, clothes drenched completely. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like magical fire, burning a warmth into his body that fueled him much more than panic could. It was need. He needed to get to Arthur.

Merlin saw him clear as day, he saw that Arthur saw his house. Whatever connection between them had allowed that vision to come through was unknown to him, but he was not going to take any chances. It felt far too real. Far beyond what he had previously imagined in his mind. He had felt the pressure of the water, the cold in his bones, the lack of air. Either he had gone stark mad, or magic had shown him what to do.

He prayed for the latter.

The form was moving towards him as well, their speeds almost matching up, a collision inevitable.

It was just like the dream. Except this time Merlin had a chance.

This time his fingers slipped in between the metal plates and grabbed onto straps, pulling the body back with him as the wearer struggled to stay afloat. The importance of getting the both of them back to shore distracted him from performing a thorough examination just to make sure it really was Arthur. But then again, how many blonde men clad in medieval battle gear would have decided to take a swim in this particular lake.

“Le-” the man’s voice was so frightening that an unpleasant shiver ran through Merlin and his hold slipped. It lacked the strong timbre of Arthur’s voice, sounding rather like sandpaper against metal. Raw and hoarse from lack of use. Too weak to hold a word on the first try.

Centuries in death. Of course he’d sound rusty.

“Le’ ‘o.” he rasped. “Le-tuh guh-o.” _Let go._ “Let go. Of. Me.”

“Fat chance, dollophead,” Merlin managed, struggling to tread water as he took a large breath.

“...Mer...lin?”

He didn’t know if the wetness on his face was due exclusively to his tears of relief or the lake water sloshing in his face. The feeling inside of him was absolutely indescribable. It was an ache, a pull, a giddy numbness, euphoria and disbelief thrown into a mixer with dozens of other things. He couldn’t make sense of it. So he cried. Pausing as his sobs threatened to choke him  once his feet touched the floor again. Holding Arthur tighter despite his ceased attempts to escape his arms.

“It’s me.” he choked out, hauling them onto shore, nearly slipping on the wet grass. Merlin lowered Arthur as gently as he could but ended up collapsing himself, landing at Augusta’s feet in a shivering heap. The doctor’s words sounded like a distant ringing in his ears which were tuned intently towards Arthur, head rolled to the side and facing Merlin, eyes wide, lips moving.

“I saw you.” Arthur’s voice was more his own now, sounding as if he’d just gotten over a rather nasty cold and not ages of being dead. Rain trailed down his face, his features handsome and regal as ever. His eyes, however, were beginning to tinge with red and Merlin realized that it wasn’t just the rain. He was crying. “Under the water. Your light.”

Merlin crawled over and grabbed his hand, leaning forward on his knees and burying his face in the mail on his chest, crying freely now.

“It was dark. Then your light.” Arthur coughed, but it might have been a laugh. “You just can’t stop saving me.”

Hands seized Merlin’s shoulders and pulled him back with a cry. He drew himself out of his daze enough to stop from attacking Augusta with his magic, fingertips just barely beginning to light with fire. She let go immediately as if he had gone through and burned her, tripping over her own feet and falling down next to him. Her short blonde hair was plastered to her jaw, stringy and damp. She looked panicked. It wasn’t comfortable to see that expression on her face.

“It’s Arthur.” Merlin wiped pointlessly at his eyes, a dizzy grin splitting his face. “Arthur’s returned.”

Augusta looked as if she were about to scream. “From where?! Afghanistan isn’t under Lake Avalon! It’s not bloody Atlantis, he- why in God’s name is he wearing knights’ armour? How did you know he’d be there? Who _are_ you?!!”

A silent spell, his hand touching her cheek for the briefest moment, and he showed her. His bottled up memories flowed freely from his fingertips and into Augusta, her blue eyes hazing over with a pale yellow for a brief flicker of a moment.

Her shoulders slumped as if she had become Atlas’ companion, sharing his urden of the weight of the world.

“No.” she said softly, but the expression on her face showed comprehension, almost understanding. Because Merlin had given her some of his memories and they were in themselves and answer to every question she could possibly conjure. The only thing available to her was denial or acceptance. “You can’t be.”

And then two words he had not heard in over fifteen hundred years. Since he was forced to change his name to mask his incurable immortality. Since those who knew his face had long since passed.

“You’re Merlin.”

“And you’re freezing.” Merlin broke the moment with a bit of humor and grabbed his cardigan, wringing out most of the water by hand before remembering the people around him had already seen his magic. A whisper and the clothing was dry. The cardigan, his outfit, Augusta’s, and Arthur’s, the king’s golden hair framing his brow with the same gentle sweep like an artist’s stroke.

“And _I,”_ Arthur pushed himself into a sitting position, but his arms trembled with the effort of keeping himself upright. The rain was already beginning to reverse the effects of Merlin’s drying spell. “Would like to get out of this weather.”

“You’re unusually calm about this, Arthur,” Merlin observed, helping him to his feet, Augusta warily edging closer, hands twitching in front of her as if afraid to touch him. “You’ve asked less questions than Augusta.”

For the first time, Arthur seemed to acknowledge the presence of another person. Then he focused back on Merlin, the odd trio trudging back up the shore and to the main road.

“They’ve been preparing me for this for a long time.” Arthur said enigmatically.

“They?” Merlin asked, gripping his hand tighter, shifting Arthur’s arm so that it rested more comfortably across his shoulders.

Arthur stared ahead of them, eyes gray in the stormy atmosphere. “The voices. The visions.”

Everything suddenly made terrible sense. Morgana. Mab. Dreams, nightmares, flashbacks.

But then his next words rattled the sorcerer to the core.

“There’s a war in the distance. Can’t you hear it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter felt pretty intense for me to write but overall I'm fairly happy with it. Please let me know in the comments what you think! I'd love feedback on this one in particular to see how I did with all of it


	5. Two Birds, One Day

Getting Arthur inside wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. Augusta muttered something about muscular atrophy, but for some reason it didn’t seem to apply to the several millennia old man risen from the depths of a lake. He simply needed their arms to support him.

A pile of armour formed in the centre of Merlin’s living room as he aided in removing Arthur’s battle gear while Augusta rifled through the papers and paintings in the study, still not quite believing what she was experiencing. Of course Merlin could use a spell to remedy that, but mortal minds were too fragile. He couldn’t bear breaking her, even though he might have already.

“I want to believe you’re real.” The silence coming from Arthur was unbearable so Merlin attempted to break it.

Arthur’s eyes flicked up from watching his deft hands deal with the straps, searching his face, and Merlin looked back, scanning the familiar features as if looking for any sort of flaw or sign that would betray him as an imposter or a hallucination.

“Believe.” Arthur smiled for a brief moment as if the word amused him. Was it encouragement?

“Believe.” Merlin repeated.

“I believed in this moment.” This was the longest sentence Arthur had composed since his sage-like utterance about a war. “I believed when they said I’d come back to this world, that you would be alive despite everything else being gone. I’m here. I’m real. I’m-”

He blinked, confused.

“I’m cold.”

Merlin couldn’t help but snort, a sense of normalcy returned. “Still complaining, are we?” But he glanced at the fireplace and lit a fire, causing a wave of warmth to sweep over them.

Arthur smiled broadly this time, the charming smile that spoke of friendship and shared jokes and irreplaceable memories. “You haven’t changed. At least not in that way.”

“You told me not to.” Merlin recalled, producing a wan grin.

“So you do listen when I tell you to do things?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

Arthur chuckled and fell quiet, Merlin’s smile slowly slipping away, pulled down by the gravity of the situation. For a moment everything felt comfortable, almost normal. The normal that died along with his friend.

“I had dreams,” Arthur told him. He was becoming gradually more talkative as minutes went by. Merlin pressed a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that he’d bought months ago in too large of a size into his arms as the once king stood there in his outdated clothing. Either Arthur didn’t want to leave his side or didn’t know where else to go, Merlin wasn't sure, but he started to change on the spot, the autonomous activity surprising. “Dreams about this… strange world. Then I saw this place across the lake, how different it looked. They weren’t dreams.” The fear in his eyes was unmissable. “Somehow I know. I know what you know. What they all know.”

“What do you mean?” Merlin pressed, hoping for more clarification, head still dizzy both from the cold and the shock.

A force beyond his understanding had influenced Arthur during his death and done something to him. To his mind. Was it like what Merlin had done with Augusta? But in smaller doses? Perhaps that was why he was so much calmer and composed.

“Ben-Merlin- oh for goodness sake.” Augusta walked in as Arthur removed his shirt after tying the cords of the sweatpants, quickly turning back around and retreating back into the study.

Arthur pressed the shirt over his chest, frozen until she disappeared. Chivalry perished hard, it seemed.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“She’s married to a woman.” Merlin informed him, watching his face curiously for any signs of comprehension. “Does that mean something to you?”

Arthur paused, his head halfway through the neck of the shirt, then pulled it all the way on. “She’s lesbian. Or something other than heterosexual. Gay rights have progressed exponentially over the past decades as society has become more accepting.”

Merlin stared at him as if he just spoke in a foreign dialect, a new wave of shock crashing into him. Those words didn’t even exist in Arthur’s vernacular when he died, how could he-

Unless he wasn’t lying.

_I know what you know. What they all know._

Merlin grabbed the remote from the coffee table, took the batteries out, and pressed the empty module into his hand. “This?”

Arthur turned it over in his hand and held the other one out, fingers beckoning. Merlin handed the batteries over and Arthur put them in correctly, then turned on the television for switching it back off, tossing it onto the sofa.

“Your dreams taught you how to use a remote?”

The king blinked, as if just realizing he’d done something extraordinary for a man over a dozen centuries out of his time. He looked so utterly lost, still trapped in the water despite being brought inside. “I- they weren’t dreams. You were in the dreams. The visions… the woman showed me.”

“Morgana? Freya? She’s dark haired-”

“No.” Arthur said bluntly. “Freya didn’t like her.”

Merlin buried his face in his hands, the adrenaline wearing off more by the second. He wanted him to stop being so cryptic, so daft despite the knowledge he shouldn’t possess, and be straightforward. He wanted a reason for his return, a reason that he saw Arthur underwater from hundreds of meters away in his home.

He wanted to know that he wasn’t going mad.

So he reached into his pocket and found the sigil, withdrawing it and placing it in Arthur’s palm, wordlessly closing his fingers over it like a flower blossoming in reverse.

Arthur opened them to look, and a realization dawned across his face, warming his cold skin.

“Do you know how long I’ve had this?” Merlin’s voice splintered towards the end of his question, cracking enough to make him wince. He looked away to his feet, wordless.

“Merlin.” Arthur’s voice drew him back, forcing him to meet his eyes. They were softer now, like malleable silver instead of hard disks. Worried, unsure, but strong. Stronger than Merlin ever felt he could be. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words seemed to suit his need.

So he reached out with his free hand and grabbed Merlin’s bony shoulder, pulling him into a one-armed embrace. Merlin’s arms were folded against his chest, pinned between them almost painfully, but it didn’t matter. He could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, the soft pulse of a heart. Human. Alive.

Here.

“I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through.” Arthur said quietly, face pressed against his hair, the words stirring against his neck. “She showed me sometimes. I wouldn’t stop asking about you. Everything you’ve done- for me, for Camelot, for Gwen…”

He paused, unsure of how to finish, but it was too much for Merlin. He could feel the water against the dam finally conquering its oppressor and spilling forth in choking sobs. Arthur’s arm around him tightened and Merlin grabbed the front of his shirt, burying his face against his shoulder. Arthur said something but it was lost to his ears. An assurance, perhaps. Or another apology.

Arthur didn’t let go until he was sure Merlin’s tears had ceased, the two separating slowly and with mutual hesitation, eyes not drifting far from the other. Wariness, as if both were afraid the other was going to suddenly vanish and looking away would do just that.

Augusta returned, saving them like a well thrown blade from the suffocating silence that was forming. Merlin straightened, forcing himself to prepare for a barrage of questions.

Instead, she broke out into a massive grin.

“This is absolutely incredible.” Augusta said, awestruck, flipping through the pages of one of his spellbooks. “Museums would _kill_ to have half the things in your drawers. God, the books got Guinevere all _wrong_. And you! The greatest sorcerer to ever- I- I’m just- would it be unprofessional if I passed out?”

“You just saw the former king of Camelot half naked in my sitting room,” Merlin pointed out, chuckling with relief at having received giddiness instead of a screaming fit. “I think we’ve long since crossed the lines of professionalism.”

Augusta’s next words sounded as if she were speaking underwater, muffled to Merlin’s ears. A shape ringing pierced through them and he hissed in pain, drawing the attention of the two people in the room.

Two people, two different names spilling from their lips like glue, thick and viscous and adhesive, trying to secure him to them.

“Merlin?”

“Ben?!”

A cackling voice pierced the fog of white noise and he was vaguely aware of a small fey-like figure perched on the back of an armchair. Thunder boomed over the house and it was reciprocated by a tremorous roar that shook the earth with its power, rippling through roots and mountains and the deepest waters, shifting the clouds, sifting through soil and graves and seas, searching.

Searching for _him._

_Emrys._

He opened his mouth but his voice failed him, curling up and lodging itself in his throat, suffocating. He could feel the wave of power crest over him as it came to a halt at its destination, threatening to swallow him. Someone’s fingers grazed his arm, trying and failing to grab him as his legs gave out and he fell to the floor.

_Emrys._

The speaker was discernibly female, but so much more than what was able to be confined to a single category. A widespread, enveloping force, the kind that spurred religions and gave rise to sciences, the kind that poets could speak of but never dream of. And it was reaching out for him, touching his hand.

_You may have friends that brought your king back, but you have never known an enemy like me. Heed your warrior’s word. You have a war waiting ahead, and I shall be delighted to set it loose._

A woman screamed in horror, a voice preserved in dreams, a face alive in paintings. Freya. Pale, beautiful face contorted in fear, suspended somewhere above him, in between realities, there and not and everywhere and nowhere. A darkness grabbed at her dress, scratched at her arms, drawing blood from veins that should not still bleed.

_“MERLIN!”_

“MERLIN!”

And then a flashback came.

_A flag rustled in the wind, cutting through the blue sky, sunlight pushing through the dyed fabric and illuminating the crimson background and marigold emblem._

_Guinevere stood on the steps of the castle watching it with eyes raw from crying._

_Merlin was standing beside her, hand gentle on her arm. She wasn’t meant to be outside but she had looked at him with such sorrow that for once in his life he felt that perhaps someone truly understood the extent of his pain._

_He could feel it still. The heaviness in his chest dull and throbbing like he’d been struck by the hilt of a blade. The exhaustion draped over his shoulders like a blanket infused with lead. He was not finished grieving over Arthur and it was almost a year since his death. Now the world was asking him to prepare to grieve yet again. To support the queen, his friend, as well, when he himself could barely stand in the morning without doubling over and trying not to retch._

_At the time he couldn’t explain it. Gaius thought it was aftershocks from his magic returning. Gwen thought he’d simply taken ill, but was proven incorrect when the old physician could find nothing physically wrong. It was guilt ripping him apart. Guilt over not heeding the world’s warnings and allowing this to happen._

_It was the beginning of centuries of mental torment._

_“I do not think I’ll see a beautiful day ever again.” Gwen’s voice was ruined, barely above a whisper as she pulled her shawl tighter around herself. “The world will be forever tainted if I lose another love before it’s begun.”_

_The words were unspoken but loud enough for Merlin to notice. She turned to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging him close, and without hesitation he reciprocated. It was the first time he hadn’t been hugged out of pity the past months. The first time it wasn’t for him. This was what he could do for Gwen. Hold her._

_The next morning Merlin had helped her bury her first and only child, not even weeks old._

_Arthur’s child._

When he came back to his senses, when the voice finally vacated every fibre of his being, the suffocating hold of the force and flashback receding from the front of his mind, he could see trees. The scent of rain.

The Valley of the Fallen Kings cradled him.

Arthur sat beside him on the bed in the spare bedroom, crystalline eyes fixed on him with immense concern. The window was open, allowing a cool breeze to enter, bringing the trees to life. With his unfocused vision he could almost pretend he was truly in the forest.

“Merlin?”

Merlin hummed in response, fluttering his eyes open even further to find him. His golden hair was damp, like he’d taken a shower. Merlin could vaguely smell his shampoo, his soap, so Arthur certainly had.

“Merlin, you’ve been unconscious for hours.”

He shot upright at that, panic fluttering in his throat again. “That- that can’t be right. It’s only been seconds.”  

But he knew Arthur was right. Arthur had time to move him to the room. Shower. The atmosphere was darker and the storm had settled.

Hours felt like seconds. Because time meant nothing to such a force as the kind that has presented itself to him.

Arthur clasped Merlin’s hand between his own, pressing the sigil into his palm like Merlin had done to him. “Things have to change. They have so much already, but I need you to talk to me. Can you do that?”

_There’s so much I want to tell you, but all the time in the world may not be enough._

His memories weighed on his chest, but he knew this wasn’t an open invitation to rid himself of them. Arthur had not returned to be a second therapist or a sympathetic ear to his plights. Albion needed him. It needed them both. As always they were two sides of the coin, but now they held two halves of a puzzle and they needed to connect them to see the entire picture. _To see the war ahead._

“The woman who helped you…” Merlin swallowed nervously, feeling like he was burning up despite the current of cold in the room. “Is it possible that that there was someone else? Something else?”

Arthur opened his mouth to answer but the words never made it out as a crashing sound came from downstairs and the front door slammed shut. The two quickly exchanged a glance, a look they had shared so many times before, and scrambled off the bed and down to main floor. Merlin nearly tripped over his feet on the stairs, but Arthur remained steady even in his speed, dashing through the living room and grabbing his sword, brandishing it in front of him as they burst into the front hall, a spell on Merlin’s lips, both ready to confront whatever was coming towards them.

A sickly thin woman stood before them, her dark hair tangled and matted, weeds trailing from her shoulders like the tattered remains of a shawl. Her rich purple dress was torn, bleeding cuts corresponding to the ripped fabric, the pattern parallel and jagged like claws.

Her lower lip trembled, beginning to turn blue as her whole body trembled and shook from the water, cuts, and collage of bruises splashed across her pale skin as if applied by a half drunk artist. A puddle of lake and rain water formed around her scratched and bleeding bare feet.

Arthur lowered his sword.

“Please help me,” Freya whispered. 


	6. All This For a Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for the lack of updates in these past months! Now that I’ve gotten my inspiration back and a somewhat clear plot planned out I should be back with somewhat regular posts this summer. 
> 
> Also I feel the need to add a trigger warning to this chapter for a mentioned potential suicide attempt. It’s only two lines and it’s not clear cut but the meaning is there.

Arthur’s reflexes weren’t hindered at all by his centuries long slumber. He dropped his sword and swept forward, deftly scooping Freya up into his arms just as she began to sway. She settled against his chest and her shaking began to cease due to the heat he no doubt transferred. Merlin then realized that Arthur was looking to him. For instructions. God, that was new and unsettling.

But more importantly, he wasn’t hallucinating her. Arthur was holding the woman and the puddle of chilling water had reached Merlin’s toes, causing him to inch back. This too was real.

What had brought her here then? And what it who had attacked her? Could it possibly have been the same force that reached for Merlin through the vast plain of space and time? The one that promised the war Arthur spoke of? He recalled the vision of Freya trapped in a void as darkness tore at her very being that followed the eerie words. It must have been.

This was a warning, perhaps. A warning of things to come.

“We need to get Freya warm, put her in a bed and I’ll search for spare blankets and a space heater.” he finally said with surprising practicality, closing the door and hurrying past Arthur to the stairs, knowing he was already following.

“We could use Gaius right about now.” Arthur said offhandedly, shifting the half conscious woman in his arms. She groaned, the broken sound ripping itself from her bruised throat.

Merlin had to hide the pain of that comment, the fact that it felt like a hot knife being twisted between his ribs.

_He passed away in autumn._

_Gaius was old when Merlin first met him. And like all things in this world, he continued to age. He was spry and lively and wise but after so many years fell into decay like a dying tree. His joints cracked and popped like kernels in a fire and he began to grow increasingly weaker and tired. He moved from his workbench to the cot normally reserved for patients, which is what he had become. Merlin had tried spells and potions, searching for some form of remedy in all of Gaius’s books and tomes, even going so far as to drag Kilgharrah from his slumber. The dragon took his time in arriving. He too was ageing. Dying. He could offer no aid._

_There was little Merlin could do to reverse the toll of time on a body._

_He had woken up one morning and attempted to rouse Gaius. It took a great deal of shouting and shaking and eventually his withered eyelids parted and his clouding eyes found the pair above him. His once steady hands shook as they folded around Merlin’s and his cracked lips that he had once joked resembled a turtle’s maw formed a final smile._

_“My son.” Gaius spoke softly, his hands squeezing around Merlin’s. He coughed once, dull and rattling._

_His hands went slack. The smile slid from his face._

_His eyes closed for the last time._

_Merlin barely remembered the funeral, only that Gwen had arranged a beautiful affair to honor the ever loyal physician._

_What he did remember was standing on the battlements late that night, the frigid wind ripping at his clothes, forcing his slightly lengthy hair into his face. Perhaps it was grief that brought him there. Grief over losing a second father when the pain of Arthur’s death hadn’t even begun to subside. The fact that no more than a decade prior he held Arthur’s infant daughter in his arms, the way she smiled at him with such brightness nearly convincing him that he had a chance of finding joy in this life again, only to be helping Guinevere set her in her small grave. He would never completely understand his reason for being there. Percival found him after a while, sent by Gwen who hadn’t found Merlin in his chambers._

_They thought he was going to kill himself._

_He didn’t know how to tell them they were wrong._

“Merlin.” Arthur sounded vaguely irritated and he realized that he’d stopped dead in the middle of the staircase. Then his voice softened, beginning to verge on concerned. “Merlin, we have to help her.”

Reality began to fill in around him like watercolors leeching onto paper and Merlin snapped out of his daze, feeling slightly nauseous. It was always that way after such strong memories. He led the way to his own bedroom, the closest one, and pulled the blankets on his bed aside before setting down several towels from the closet so Arthur could set Freya on them. The woman winced and hugged her arms to her chest, eyes tight with pain.

“S’cold…” she slurred, and Merlin drew the blankets back over her, smoothing them down and tucking them around her thin frame the way his mother would do when he was a child. He picked the plants from her hair and disposed of them in the rubbish bin, looking up in surprise upon seeing that Arthur had taken the initiative to find the space heater from his closet and plug it in. The house’s heating functioned well enough but there were times when nightmares about the lake left him cold and shivering and unable to find warmth. Hence the need for a personal heater.

He sped to the hall closet and pulled out some extra blankets, quickly returning and draping them over Freya, hoping it would be enough with the heater to draw the chill from her bones.

“It’s going to be just fine, Freya,” Merlin whispered soothingly, reaching out and placing the flat of his hand on her cheek, almost cupping her face. The face of the woman he once loved, who he held as she died, who somehow couldn’t stop repaying him for his kindness. She’d looked after Arthur in whatever realm he’d been cast to beneath the lake and for that Merlin would be infinitely indebted.

_“Freya didn’t like her.”_ Arthur said of the woman that had provided him with visions and information. What that told Merlin was Freya and Arthur had been together in the long period, that his king hadn’t been without a friend in the darkness that Merlin saw in his dreams. He wondered if Arthur knew she was the beast he’d attempted to slay in the citadel that fateful night. Perhaps he did and lIke’s her all the same. Like with Merlin and his magic.

_I want you to always be you._

Merlin became increasingly conscious of Arthur’s presence behind him, hovering over his shoulder. That made him all the more nervous when he uttered the healing spell Morgana had used on him when he’d been held captive in her hovel. _“Ic ðe ðurhhæle ðinu licsar mid ðam sundorcræft ðære ealdan æ. Drycræft ðurhhæle ðina wunda ond ðe geedstaðolie.”_

Freya’s shallow breathing eased into a steady rhythm, the lines on her face smoothing as she relaxed into a lulling sleep, comforting heat beginning to fill the area. He pulled back the blankets a bit and saw her wounds beginning to close up, bruises fade to nothing but pale skin.

He sighed with relief and backed away from her, his back meeting Arthur’s chest accidentally. Neither felt inclined to move, he noticed after a moment had passed, until Arthur ran a hand across his shoulder.

“You did good, Merlin.”

He whirled around to face the king, a touch dumbfounded. “Who are you and what have you done with Arthur Pendragon?” A poor attempt at a joke. 

Arthur snorted in response and opened up Merlin’s dresser, picking out a long sleeved shirt and some pyjama bottoms, placing them at the foot of the bed. It was such a tender gesture to set out clothes for Freya, not to mention it wasn’t something Merlin had even thought to do yet, that he found himself smiling a bit.

“You’re tired,” Arthur noted, looking Merlin up and down. “You should rest.”

“You should too,” Merlin replied, opening the door for Arthur and following him into the hall. “I doubt we’re going to learn anything from Freya until she wakes.” He paused. “The guest room is yours if you’d like it.”

Arthur looked towards the aforementioned room. “And where are you sleeping?”

“I can just kip on the sofa downstairs.” He said, but there was hesitation. Both Arthur and Freya upstairs and out of sight, far from his reach…it wasn’t ideal. If something were to happen- he wasn’t entirely sure what _could_ happen- he would be too late. Merlin didn’t trust that they wouldn’t disappear the moment he left their vicinity. Another cruel trick played by the sadistic world.

“I-” Arthur began quietly, almost embarrassed, staring intently at his bare feet like they had suddenly become the most interesting things in the known universe. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t exactly fancy having you out of my sight.”

Merlin’s shoulders visibly sagged with relief. “I don’t fancy having you out of mine either.”

Arthur looked back up and smiled, the same look he had when he’d won something. “Glad that’s settled then. Come on.”

He shepherded a complacent Merlin back to the forested room and guided him back to his side of the mattress. Merlin didn’t even so much as bat an eye when Arthur shut the window and climbed in on the other side of the bed. They’d done this many times in the far past, too many for a show to be made of it.

The sigil sat safely on the nightstand and Merlin felt as if he were able to breathe easier by knowing where it was.

“I can’t believe you’ve kept it with you all this time.” Arthur’s voice came soft and cautious from his right. It was clear that he knew where Merlin was looking and he rolled on his side to face his friend, managing a smile.

“As if I’d lose something of that much significance.”

He felt Arthur’s hand touch his under the covers and draw it up to rest between them, holding it tight. It hadn’t been often that he’d seen the king of Camelot afraid, only a select few times such as facing the Dorocha and later the ghost of his father. But now he saw the blatant fear in his eyes, felt it in the pressure around his hand, the increasing lack of circulation to his fingers.

“It’s still hard to believe this is real.” Arthur admitted quietly, voicing the very words Merlin was about to share. They were almost lost to the sound of rain against the window, an unceasing torrent. “I spent so much time in Avalon with Freya and the woman that I feared it was all I was ever going to have. They told me I’d return to your world when it needed me but I prayed that such a calamity would never arise.”

“And I prayed it would.” Merlin whispered, shame gnawing at his insides, making him want to curl in on himself like some gnarled withered thing that he’d likely become should his unnatural extension of years decide to suddenly make themselves known in the worst possible way. He might as well deserve it.

But was he not allowed that selfishness after millennia of suffering?

“Tell me.” Merlin found himself saying, meeting Arthur’s eyes, the same as he remembered them. Stars above, he’d never been able to capture them right in his art. It just wasn’t the same as the real thing. His voice was thick with emotion as heavy as bricks, tears waiting behind his now closed eyelids. “Tell me what it was like all that time.”

Arthur sighed and Merlin could feel the warmth of his breath ghost across his face. A single tear worked its way down his cheek and onto the sheets and he pressed his lips shut to keep from sobbing with sheer happiness. _This is real. This is real. This is real._

_He is real._

“I could not leave the island.” he started off hesitantly, like he was testing the ground before taking his next step, unsure of which direction to take. “Nor could Freya. I awoke in the large courtyard of what looked to be a familiar castle and I came to realize that it was the citadel of Camelot. But not _our_ Camelot. At the time I believed I was home, despite the unnatural amount of mist surrounding things and the fact that there was no one about. I had only begun to call for you when Freya came down the steps. She introduced herself to me and explained that I had been killed, that I was dead and now in the land of eternal youth. It took a long time before I could remember my death. It took a long time for me to believe her. I searched every room of the palace and found not a single soul. When I attempted to cross the gates I found a wall of fog worse than the kind that rolls through the Valley of the Fallen Kings.” Merlin knew it well, he’d complained a great deal about it during a patrol he went along on. They could hardly see the horse in front of them, the red of another knight’s cape hardly discernible against the world of white. He was tempted to use his magic to clear it but it soon passed on its own.

“I forged on through and saw a gateway.” Arthur continued steadily, and Merlin opened his eyes to watch the emotions play across his face like shadows in firelight. Confusion, concern, and defeat. “And when I went through I found myself entering the same archway I had exited, walking back into the courtyard. No matter what I did there was no escape. It was a loop of sorts, some form of sorcery that wouldn’t let me leave. Freya couldn’t either. I could feel time passing but not in the normal sense. The sun set at intervals that seemed uneven. Sometimes the moon wouldn’t rise. I did not require food or drink or even sleep on occasion. It was only after I forced myself to accept the terms of whatever purgatory I was in and befriend Freya that the woman appeared.”

He spoke the two words ‘ _the woman_ ’ with such weight and significance that made them synonymous with the image of a lavish crown that burdened a king’s head with its wealth and power.

“She never gave a name. One day she just… appeared in the courtyard. I could see her from my window standing there in her black robes. They changed colors like oil and I knew she was of some kind of magic. I ordered Freya to remain indoors as I went to confront her. She-” Arthur’s eyes looked tight with something akin to sorrow or regret. “She had Mithian’s face. There was no doubt that I was looking at Princess Mithian yet it was not her in the slightest. Merely her form, her appearance. A borrowed image. She said she was the one keeping Freya and me separate from the other souls. Freya was no longer needed as the lady of the lake while I was in Avalon. That she was there only to ease the transition. The woman told me of the war in the future that I would be brought back for and that she wished to prepare me for the conflict. She’d put me to sleep for periods, I’d remember nothing but a calm darkness, and then I would wake for her to teach me things about the world. In exchange for my cooperation I was able to request that Freya come back with me when the time came and-” his voice fractured slightly. “That I be able to see you on occasion.”

Merlin’s thoughts went white and he had no idea how to respond, his lips moving wordlessly, unable to find a way to comprehend the degree of sentiment he was met with.

“See… _me_?” was all that came out, his voice hoarse and quiet.

Arthur nodded against the pillow, succeeding in ruffling his golden hair and pushing it into his face. Merlin fought the urge to fix it and immediately wondered where such a thought had come from.

“When I would go into the sleep I had dreams, or…visions. Of you. Sometimes it was the past, times when I was not with you, things that you experienced. And I could feel it as if I was you.” Arthur’s tone had taken on an almost detached feel, sadness and wonder mingling together. “I saw you and Freya, I felt your love for her. I felt your pain as she died in your arms. And your father, the dragonlord. Things you could never tell me. There were also times we were together. Out on rides, things like that. I felt your love for me. And then your life in the world I was to return to. I could see you age, I could feel your sorrow. I don’t know how you managed.”

_I haven’t._ Merlin wanted to say. _I haven’t managed. Look at me now._

“You’re stronger than I could ever dream of being.” Arthur said softly. “And I regret every time I called you a coward when you were more of a hero than anyone I’ve known. I had Freya and the visions of you, but you- you had no one.”

There was silence for a moment before Merlin finally made his mind up.

“I’d like to show you something.” Merlin gingerly worked his hand free from Arthur’s, swallowing nervously and slipping out of the bed, standing up to see the forest around him. He could see the same recognition in the king’s eyes as they raked over the shades of green and brown and gold from sunlight frozen in time.

Merlin led the way downstairs after checking in on Freya and finding her fast asleep, her breathing regular and features calm. It was unnerving to hear the pair of footsteps behind him when he never did in this house. It was always just his alone.

Things had changed so quickly.

They went through the sitting room to the glass walled sunroom turned study where the scent of herbs and lavender strung up by the door to the garden floated over them. Where papers were taped and tacked to the glass and walls, art supplies littered across the old Victorian desk, canvases stacked against each other. Druidic symbols etched in window chalk on the panels of glass. Sheafs of sketches of herbs and remedial plants from Gaius’s chambers. Shelves of books on what were known as ‘Arthurian legends’. Half of which he played a hand in writing, the others such blasphemous defamations of characters and history that he’d only bought them to burn when he ran out of firewood.

Merlin flicked his fingers towards the lamp and soon a golden glow washed over everything, making the contents of the room much more visible.

All around was the artwork of Camelot and its inhabitants. The kingdoms and the people within them.

Gouache landscapes of valleys and waterfalls, castles and forests. Charcoal and pencil sketches of familiar faces in preserved smiles or states of being. Gwen drawing water from the well, a bit of yellow added for her dress. Then her on the throne looking regal in her brilliant red gown. Gaius mixing potions, a portrait of Mithian smiling. Morgana laughing at her birthday ceremony. Gwaine, Leon, Percival, Elyan, Lancelot. Hunith. Balinor. Will. Arthur, stoic and brave in full armour. Arthur in his tunics smiling at his desk or just standing calmly on the battlements looking over the citadel. There were many of Arthur.

Arthur who was actually there standing next to him.

Merlin ducked his head as the heat of brief embarrassment caressed his neck when he heard Arthur let out a soft sound of surprise. He watched as Arthur moved forward to gingerly touch the edge of a portrait of Gwen, his lips forming a line as he pressed them shut. The tips of his fingers barely skimmed the detailed curls of her hair before his arm dropped to his side and he drifted towards the canvases, crouching in front of them and flipping through the paintings.

“These are beautiful,” Arthur said, awe plastered across his face. He paused upon reaching a painting of Morgana, his sister, and Merlin felt an identical pang of hurt resonate through him. The wound of her betrayal was one that would never truly heal.

“It was all I could do,” Merlin began to feel awkward standing over him like some gangly scarecrow and moved back over to the doorway to give him some space. “To not feel so alone. My life in Camelot was supposed to be the only life I had, the people the only ones I’d know, and it still feels like that. I’m a ghost in this world.” He swallowed thickly, feeling tears well up within him again. The words came unbidden, pent up for far too long. “I feel like I can keep all of them with me like this. I’m afraid of somehow forgetting. Of being alone indefinitely.”

He was fully crying now, the wet, slick, hot tears rolling down his face like the rain on the window and he bunched the ends of his sleeves up, wiping at his cheeks. Before he knew it, Arthur was there with his arms wrapped securely around him, pulling him tightly to his chest as if he could keep Merlin from falling apart just by holding him together. Merlin pressed his face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, inhaling with a shuddering breath and carefully placing his hands between Arthur’s shoulder blades, surprising by how solid and warm he was. Real.

“You aren’t alone anymore.” Arthur promised him, a hand working its way through his hair, soothing and reassuring. Merlin allowed himself to relax against him, not realizing how on guard he was. It was a long time since anyone held him that way. “I’m here. Freya is here. And you have Augusta, that wonderful woman.”

“Augusta won’t last forever.” Merlin whispered, feeling a hollow ache gnawing at his insides. The tragedy of not knowing when his life would end meant that very few things had meaning. “Eventually she will die and I will live on. And you and Freya…who knows if Avalon will let you stay here? After whatever war is coming, after we win, you might have to leave. And I will have to stay here. And I’ll be alone again, I might not be able to die-”

His panicked rambling was interrupted when Arthur roughly pulled back to hold Merlin’s face between his hands, forcing his eyes to meet his, as adamant as the strongest of steel.

“I will do,” he began firmly, unwavering. “whatever it takes to ensure that you are never alone again. I will move the skies, I’ll tear that island down bit by bit. I will fight whatever forces are at play so that if I can’t stay where you are, you go where I go.”

“All this for your servant.” Merlin said with a small smile, his hands winding themselves around Arthur’s forearms, holding his hands where they were, flat and warm against the cool skin of his cheek where his tears were beginning to dry.

“All this for my _friend_.” Arthur corrected. “The dearest friend I’ve ever known who has endured more suffering than what I would wish against my worst enemy.”

He turned off the light and led Merlin from the study to return upstairs, both silent with the weight of such strong words and the looming tide of emotions that had only just begun to crest.

Slowly, from behind a cup of pencils, a faerie woman stuck her head out, ensuring that the room was deserted before fully emerging from her hiding place.

Mab padded across the desk, to get a better view of some portraits stuck to the glass, craning her head back before deciding it would be much easier to float up to them. Her tiny body rose up into the air with a simple thought and she found herself at eye level with a row of faces, those of two women. She summoned a light into her hand to see them even clearer.

They were labeled ‘Gwen’ and ‘Morgana’, Mab recognizing the former one as the paper she saw Arthur touch with such fondness and longing.

There was a third portrait hidden behind the two. She waved her hand and they lifted upwards, revealing the face beneath. A woman with hair as black as pitch, some strands braided into dark cords tied back behind her head. Her blue eyes held a dangerous intelligence, her red lips drawn into a cruel and challenging smirk.

‘Nimueh’.

Shadows wove into Mab’s eyes, the white sclera poisoned with a darkness that filled them like an almost demonic oil spill. She let the portraits flutter back into place. The three women.

“How delightfully interesting.” 


End file.
